An insight into the Walton Basin, offshore Jamaica: A FALCON® perspective

Abstract

The Walton Basin offshore Jamaica is an Early Tertiary rift basin situated on the eastern margin of the Nicaragua Rise. Newly acquired seismic data integrated with reprocessed historical seismic records depict an extensional horst and graben-style basinal setting. A number of leads ranging from Late Cretaceous to Mid Miocene in structural and stratigraphic traps have been identified. Additional high-resolution airborne FALCON® gravity gradiometry and magnetic data was acquired following the seismic program and subsequently integrated for support of the seismic interpretation. A conventional approach to potential fields interpretation, 2D forward modelling and 3D inversions provided information on the basement architecture which was not achievable from the seismic data alone. The interpreted seismic depth to near base Tertiary is shallower than the estimated magnetic and gravity basements. The basement surfaces provided by the potential field methods provide an improved understanding of the main geological/tectonic elements of the basin. In addition, the gradiometry data shows variations in the shallow carbonates which may indicate lateral changes in porosity.